Today we took a trip up to Brentwood, New Hampshire to have a look at the sawmill operation at Seacoast Mills. I had seen a program about modern sawmills on the Discovery channel and had expected to see some sort of highly mechanized process. When we arrived, I was surprised to find that our tour guide Mary, and the owner of the mill, along with a minimal crew, were reducing raw timber into cut and planed lumber stacks. Below are some photos of the fairly straightforward operation. Basically the timber comes in (in this case locally sourced eastern white pine), gets debarked, sliced with a giant circular saw, and is then sawn into smaller boards or lumber with bandsaws. The board surfaces are then planed flat. Lastly, the wood is stacked in a kiln where moisture is slowly drawn out over a 6 hour drying period. Grading of lumber occurs at various stages of the milling process. All of the steps are practiced mindfully with the objective of maximizing the amount of valuable high-grade product that comes out of each log and minimizing waste. Today we took a trip up to Brentwood, New Hampshire to have a look at the sawmill operation at Seacoast Mills. I had seen a program about modern sawmills on the Discovery channel and had expected to see some sort of highly mechanized process. When we arrived, I was surprised to find that our tour guide Mary, and the owner of the mill, along with a minimal crew, were reducing raw timber into cut and planed lumber stacks. Below are some photos of the fairly straightforward operation. Basically the timber comes in (in this case locally sourced eastern white pine), gets debarked, sliced with a giant circular saw, and is then sawn into smaller boards or lumber with bandsaws. The board surfaces are then planed flat. Lastly, the wood is stacked in a kiln where moisture is slowly drawn out over a 6 hour drying period. Grading of lumber occurs at various stages of the milling process. All of the steps are practiced mindfully with the objective of maximizing the amount of valuable high-grade product that comes out of each log and minimizing waste. 
Posts
